Author Archives: Ed Thomas

Re-thinking their position

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Reflecting on the BBC’s current coverage of Iraq and the Petraeus report which is due today, I was led to have a nostalgic look at the much-missed LastNight’sBBCNEWS blog, which gave panoramas of Panorama and other BBC programmes during its existence. Here’s an interesting post.

It reminded me of the old BBC line that the trouble with Iraq was “the Sunni insurgency… a nationalistic struggle against foreigners”. That was yesterday’s despair.

Now, I also note that the BBC have chosen to present their own news ahead of Gen. Petraeus’ remarks today, revealing what their busy-beaver, wholly impartial and fully trained Iraqi pollsters have found about Iraqis’ views on “the surge”. I don’t know how big the Iraqi media’s coverage of “the surge” has been- but I doubt whether this represents a distinct difference for Iraqis. A few more American occupiers around in Baghdad and the West of the country. So what? Well, the BBC thinks it fits nicely with the ground they’ve been preparing for Petraeus’ report.

But what I said about yesterday’s worries is relevant, extremely so. For what the BBC forget is that yesterday’s enemies have become today’s allies- in Al Anbar and the Sunni triangle. The minority that the BBC saw as a nationalistic resistance is now replaced in terms of threat by the majority Shia with its factional interests and Iranian involvement. So a poll that interviews proportionately may well reflect the fact that the US is no longer seen as a wholly backed subsidiary of the majority interest.

This might be seen as good news from Iraq, but ah, I see those distant goal posts being shifted yet again. No goal! No goal!

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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

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Please use this thread for BBC-related comments and analysis. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not (and never has been) an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or use as a chat forum. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

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Studied ignorance.

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The Beeb does Fred Thompson.

Here.

“The BBC’s Justin Webb in Washington says the former senator from Tennessee is enormously popular on the right of the party where he is seen as a new Ronald Reagan.
He is known for his conservative views on issues like abortion and gun control.”

Well, not really. Three things the BBC overlook. Deliberately.

Firstly, the debate on the Right is specifically whether Thompson really has Reagan’s qualities, or not. So he is not seen as the new Ronald Reagan as Webb glibly states. For those citizens as opposed to journalists who deal in comparisons of that kind, the real interest on the Right is to “trust but verify” that appearance.

Fred Thompson’s record on abortion has been questioned already, with facts about his stance, including lobbying for a pro-abortion group, having come to light.

Thirdly, Fred Thompson is not so much conservative on “gun control”, as assertive on “the right to bear arms”. He is also a constitutionalist, which means that he would see the debate not in the BBC’s statist controlling terms, but in terms of the Second Amendment.

I was also going to comment on this article on Thompson’s run by Laura Smith-Spark, but really there is nothing interesting in it- and that’s fundamentally the problem the BBC have in covering the US. Characters don’t get much more interesting than Fred Thompson, and his run-in to this announcement has been remarkable. The profile (compiled a while back; updated very recently) is also pretty naff.

More Fred Thompson stuff here, including his announcement that he is running for President.

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What a relief!

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The BBC has cancelled its planned Climate Relief day. Messrs Horrocks and Barron weighed in with criticism of the event and it’s been shelved. Barron (Newsnight Editor) came up with the very quotable, almost Paxmanesque, “It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet”.

Well, that’s the spin, anyway. My guess is the BBC feel that because the science is not at all that settled, they don’t want to overextend. They can always save the world another day, after all.

Hat-tips to Damian Thompson, who is gratified, and Iain Dale, who says “well done” to the Beeb. Not sure congratulations are in order here.

Oh yes, and I shouldn’t forget, Andrew had some good thoughts about this topic earlier.

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Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

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From the comments David Preiser writes:

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“I couldn’t help noticing the ridiculous BBC online coverage of the idiotic global warming protest camp at Heathrow over the weekend. The BBC’s coverage sure seemed to me like a veritable propaganda newsletter, complete with maps.”

Ah, but he was not the only one.

Donal Blaney writes on his blog:

“With fawning excitement, the BBC has paid excessive attention to the sordid collection of hippies, pot smokers and anarchists who are protesting at Heathrow Airport against freedom of movement of our citizenry.”

Meanwhile the excellent Weasel writes (with highlighted quotes) about one of the early articles during the protest:

“This is such propagandist, sandal wearing tosh, it is hard to know how to begin, but it is yet another clear demonstration that the BBC has lost all pretense of being neutral about certain issues, the environment being one of their little pets”

But David, in his comment, alludes to a darker side to the protests, and sure enough he is right to- Green Activists Attack Jewish Warehouse- Hoist Palestinian Flag!.

I don’t know what pro-Palestinian gestures and anti-Israeli violence have to do with green issues, but there seems to be something in the mind of protesters that there is such a connection.

It seems to me there is something though which might explain both the BBC’s reticence concerning reporting negative news concerning them, and their positiveness concerning the protests generally.

There is a strong sense in the BBC that such protests are righteous, falling into a long and in their eyes noble tradition of “progressive” protest, and the Beeb throws its moral weight behind them.

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Update

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(14.50 UK): I notice via David K in the comments that The UK Telegraph includes the Jesus comment story in an editorial today which you can read here.

I think we may safely say…

That Biased-BBC comments are considerably more sanitary than the BBC message boards. I am not really up to speed on BBC message boards. I don’t go there. However, the enthusiastic commenters who do enjoy posting there are making the news. This site is specifically tracking them, and doing a lively job of it.

A few days ago we were dealing here with how it appeared that a BBC member of staff had inserted into Wikipedia the view that George W. Bush was a w***** (this among other wiki-highlights courtesy of the BBC). Now a provocateur’s assertion is that Jesus was a b******. Seems to me the commenter might have found his natural home. Unfortunately for him, the BBC have been forced to evict one of his prize comments. (via LGF).

Yes, there are questions. Who funds these freaky forums, diverting people from worthy and free blogs? Why didn’t those paid to clean round said public cages remove the comment straight away? Would it have been tolerated for more than a minute were it to have been stated that Mohammed was a paedophile? Not a formulation I would use, naturally. Just asking. (and please, regular commenters would be best not to try to disprove my initial point ;-).

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It’s not the data, it’s how you present it…

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The BBC managed the spectacular headline “US army suicides hit 26-year high”. The BBC go on to add some colour relating to psychology and the like. What they don’t mention is that “the overall suicide rate for the United States was 13.4 per 100,000 people. It was 21.1 per 100,000 people for all men aged 17 to 45, compared to a rate of 17.8 for men in the Army.” (CNN)

In other words, the average US male of age to serve in the military is more likely to kill himself than those who actually serve. So, a big non-story to put on the BBC front page with accompanying dramatic headline.

The BBC also report that “The highest number recorded was 102 in 1991, the year of the Gulf War – but more soldiers were on active duty then, meaning the rate per 100,000 soldiers was lower than in 2006.”

Helpful explanation you’d think, except that the 1st Gulf war only lasted about 6/7 months and involved very little ground combat. So not such a helpful comparison after all. The BBC, as usual, can’t resist an anti-American story.

(main data, thrust of argument, and headline, via this site. )

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Just wanted to say..

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Congrats to Andrew over his posting on the BBC’s wikiedits. 7,000 eh? Such busy boys (and girls) at the BBC. Congrats too to all the great commenters who offer us so much to think about here. About half a clap should finally go to the BBC, who have now updated their article to include a modest reference to their own wikiediting exploits. Why so modest, chaps? (see below posts for details) Oh, and they’ve also linked here, as part of their inching towards a compromise on the subject. I think that most people will consider the efforts to be too little, too late.

Update (15.35 UK): that reference in full (at present):


“BBC News website users contacted the corporation to point out that the tool also revealed that people inside the BBC had made edits to Wikipedia pages.”

No mention of the nature of some of the edits: George wa*ker Bush, for instance, or the Tony Blair edits.

Update (15.45 UK): Thanks too to Damien Thompson of the Telegraph for recognising B-BBC in relation to this story with his kind words.

Update (16.05 UK): you will no doubt want to check out the BBC blog’s view of the matter, which also links here (to commenter glj thanks for the heads up on that). Thanks as well to the illuminating Helen of EU Referendum who recommends her readers to visit. Hello to you folks as well.

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That relentless climate…

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of climate change (global warming, when they can fit it in) reporting that has become virtually the BBC’s trademark is put in an interesting light by this saga of diligence on the part of bloggers (I presume scientists too, but maybe just enthusiasts).

Today the BBC have regaled us with British scientists’ latest grandiose attempts to predict the weather ten years ahead. The BBC assert that “Currently, 1998 is the warmest year on record, when the global mean surface temperature was 14.54C (58.17F).”

Well, perhaps they are out of date; indeed misled and misleading. According to the story I linked above, NASA’s data for the US was in fact skewed by a Y2K hiccup, and thus 1934 is in fact the warmest year on record– at least for the USA (other data were upset too, apparently, and generally in the direction of downgrading recent temperatures relative to the past, but this is the most notable example). Perhaps that would not affect the global data, but I suspect it would come close to upsetting those set-in-stone league tables of temperature which the (basically) man-made global warming proponents of the BBC hammer home at every opportunity.

Oh, and I suppose I should point you in the direction of NASA’s “new” data, which can be found here.

Update: Don’t miss HotAir’s analysis, including former Nasa scientist Bryan Preston’s view. “Can we at least get some peer review before we build the ark?”

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